It’s not new news that app developers are leaving the Windows Phone platform. Even fans who used their Windows Phone for years have already left the platform or will leave soon. But there are still a lot of people who rely on Windows Phones. Those people are the die-hard Windows Phone fans. There are also some people who can’t afford to buy a new phone since they have already spent a lot buying a Windows Phone of their choice. Finally, there are some companies which spent a fortune buying Windows Phone for all their employees. It will be hard for these people when developers of important applications leave the platform.
A lot of banking apps have recently left the Windows Phone platform. They cannot be blamed because it is expensive to maintain banking apps for a platform which is on the verge of extinction. Jumping on the bandwagon are two Australian Banks namely Westpac and Commonwealth Bank.
A user has posted his concern on Twitter about the Windows 10 Mobile app of Commonwealth Bank not working after a recent update. To this, Commonwealth Bank replied that after the latest update Windows Phones are not anymore compatible with the CBA app. They expressed their apology and suggested the user move to Android or iOS.
Westpac Bank in a mail responded that from April 30 onwards the Westpac Live Windows Mobile app will no longer be supported and it will not be available to download from the Microsoft Store.
All developers are either not updating their Windows 10 Mobile apps or are leaving the platform. While this is sad news, it doesn’t come as a surprise. A solution to this is using Progressive Web Apps. PWAs are easy and much cheaper to maintain than native apps. They are also cross-platform. Even Google is promoting PWAs. Google Chrome supports PWAs for Android. Microsoft Edge for PCs support PWAs. To enable PWA support for Windows 10 mobile, follow these steps.
Since Microsoft has announced that no new hardware running Windows 10 Mobile will be released, we can’t expect any more developer support. So we hope the movement to PWAs will be faster since it is required for the success of the Surface Phone which is expected to launch later this year. Windows 10 Mobile will be supported by Microsoft till mid-2019.
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The response from CBA is appalling. I've been down the road of IOS and android,, both garbage toy like and clunky systems compared to Win10 mobile and for them to suggest going back is rude and ignorant. The sad part is that we will soon only have 2 CHOICES of mobile systems unless Microsoft pulls a rabbit out of a hat and gets the surface phone off the ground. 2 choices is boardering along the lines of fascism and communism, much like the 2 headed one party political system we have.
There's always hope that everyone embraces web apps without caveats such as proprietary APIs and such. So everyone is finally free to innovate without falling into the app trap. Not going happen tomorrow of course.